Recently, radiobroadcasters have begun transmitting their audio content over the internet, allowing consumers to listen to radio stations received over the internet and played through computer speakers. For a home user to receive radio station “netcasts” over the internet, the user must have a personal computer, an internet account, browser software such as Internet Explorer® or Netscape Navigator®, an audio processing software “plug-in” capable of processing audio information, and a radio simile graphical interface. An Internet Radio Receiver and Interface, described in our co-pending application U.S. application Ser. No. 09/334,846, hereinafter referred to as internet appliance, incorporates all of the necessary computer hardware and software needed to connect to the internet and communicate with various sources of audio information such as radiobroadcasters.
Audio files are typically large and if downloaded as a whole could take fifteen minutes of wait time for each one minute of audio played. A process called streaming audio allows the user to listen to the audio while it downloads to their internet appliance (as opposed to downloading a music file and playing the file after the download is complete). There are a number of streaming audio formats available. The common ones today include Real Networks G2 and G7, Microsoft Windows Media, Shoutcast MP3 and Icecast MP3.
When a user changes the internet radio station he is listening to, the internet appliance must (a) establish a data connection with the new internet radio station, (b) receive and store streaming audio data into a data buffer, and (c) start playing the streaming audio data from the head of the buffered data while adding new streaming audio data to the tail of the buffered data. Step (b) here is commonly called buffering or pre-buffering and may take on the order of several seconds to about 10 seconds or more depending on the user's connection quality to the network, network traffic, and the characteristics of the streaming audio to which the user is trying to connect. Currently, this dead air time is filled with silence and is visually represented (when the streaming media is received through a computer with a screen) with a small “progress bar” or message announces how much of the buffering has been completed. When the buffer level reaches 100% the user then starts to hear audio from the computer. Savvy internet radio listeners are accustomed to such delays in getting access to internet content. However, when one breaks the assumption that internet radio will always be listened to at a computer where the user is looking at some visual display, then the dead air time is annoying. Our internet radio appliances mimic the functionality of a traditional FM radio, allowing the user to listen to internet “radio stations” through an appliance that does not require a fully functional personal computer, and instead functions in a manner similar to a traditional radio or audio receiver. In the embodiment of our internet radio system, the dead air time is unacceptable and potentially confusing. The dead air time incident to buffering and pre-buffering, however, can be filled with audio content as desired.